


If Memory Serves

by BardofHeartDive



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Memory Loss, blatant disregard for how amnesia actually works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 08:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11733564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/pseuds/BardofHeartDive
Summary: After being left behind on Virmire, Ashley is rescued by a salarian team. By some miracle she is fine except that she has no memory of her time on the Normandy. Kaidan does his best to help her while dealing with his own memories.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_wrote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wrote/gifts).



> Written for the following request: "I need some sweet, sweet angst of them both surviving the events of ME1 and leaning on each other as they cope with having survived almost being sacrificed. Maybe there ended up being time to save them both after making the initial choice, or going back to find the one you left behind still alive? I don't know the details, but I need the hurt/comfort of them healing together."
> 
> So many, many, MANY thanks to my (last minute, superhero) betas acequeenking and bioticfox for catching all the things I missed and helping me burn the midnight oil. 
> 
> Also, a round of applause please for acequeenking for putting in the work to run this exchange.
> 
> Please ignore the total lack of medical accuracy. There is none here. Seriously, none whatsoever.

Ashley woke up in the least comfortable bed she’d ever slept in. It was worse even than the cots in basic. Her body hurt in the dull way that meant it was going to hurt a lot more once the pain medicine wore off. She was in a hospital, that much was obvious, but she had no idea where or how she had gotten there.

“Miss Williams?”

The sound startled her and she looked to her left to find a nurse hanging a new bag for her IV. The sight made her even more confused; the nurse was asari. 

“Good morning, Miss Williams. Well ‘evening,’ I guess. I’m Rowinia, your nurse.”

“Where am I?”

“Huerta Memorial Hospital. On the Citadel.”

“The Citadel? How the hell did I get here?”

“You were found last week by a salarian recon team,” Rowinia answered. She finished with the IV, then pulled a chair up to the bed. “You were on their medical station for four days. They brought you here as soon as you were stable enough to transfer.”

“What was a salarian team doing on Eden Prime? This doesn’t make any sense. Where’s my unit? I need to speak to Commander Goren.”

“Miss Williams - ”

“Chief. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212, Dog Squad.”

“Chief Williams, what’s the last thing you remember?”

The question made her pause. The last thing she remembered? What came to mind didn’t really seem relevant but she said it anyway.

“Jenner complaining.” More came back as the words pulled the memories to the surface. “We’d drawn the short straw and had to walk to the… dig site.” Her voice dropped as she murmured to herself, “Why would we be going to a dig site?”


	2. Chapter 2

_ I don’t know how I let Shepard talk me into this. There are rules and regulations. Fraternization is serious, especially between a commissioned and noncommissioned officer. Especially in the same chain of command. Especially when one is the other’s direct superior. I may very well be making the biggest mistake of my career.  _

_ “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I mutter, more to myself than Shepard but, of course, he hears me anyway. _

_ “Kaidan. Relax,” he says, small smile on his lips. “No one’s going to look twice at four crew members getting food together.” _

_ No matter what he says, we all know it’s a double date. _

_ I am skeptical of the restaurant at first, some kind of alien-asian fusion place that Liara picked, but we pick five dishes between us and share them family style. We all agree that Shepard’s choice is best, a spin on a drell dish called “moyeto.” We finish our dinner and linger with our drinks. _

_ Watching Ashley laughing over a glass of Thessian red blend, I realize that every now and then even the biggest mistake can be worth making. _

* * *

The neurologist used a lot of big, long, fancy words to describe her “condition” but the basic premise was easy enough to understand. Due to some injury in the field, Ashley had lost all of her memories from the last four months approximately. She had no other deficits, which the doctor stressed was some kind of medical miracle. She might get some of it back, he explained, but the closer the memory was to the incident the more likely it was to be totally gone. There was no way to tell what she might eventually recall or wouldn’t but anything that could jog her memory might help.

The problem was that she had spent almost all of the missing time on one of the most classified missions the Alliance had ever run. It seemed even though she had participated at the time, she did not have the security clearance to be told about it now. She was given a few approved reports but so much of them was redacted that she only got about one word in ten and what she could read wasn’t useful. In the end she had to settle for a few e-mail exchanges that Sarah sent her and what she could find on the extranet.

There was no shortage of news from the time she’d lost. From the attack on Eden Prime, to the induction of the first human Spectre, to the recent geth attack on the Citadel, she had enough stories to keep her busy. The whole situation confounded her; that she could have both experienced and forgotten the most significant events in Alliance history was mind boggling. She read every article, watched every exclusive, listened to every interview. And while they were all fascinating in a detached way, she felt no connection to them. 

They were things she read and watched, and listened to, not things that she had lived.


	3. Chapter 3

_ I stand when the hotel door opens and Ashley walks in. It’s the first time I’ve seen her wearing anything besides her uniform and the sight of her in heels and a form-fitting dress actually takes my breath away. Her hair is loose and falls around her face like silk. I want nothing more than to run my fingers through it, to find out if it feels as soft as it looks. _

_ “You look beautiful,” I say, though the word is completely inadequate. _

_ “Thank you,” she says, a blush growing in her cheeks.  _

_ I cross the room to her, stopping so close to her I can almost hear her heart beating. I run my fingertips across the pink and it spreads up to her ears and across her nose.  _

_ She turns her head and, faster than I can register, brushes her lips across my knuckles. Her hand is on my elbow, rougher than I imagined but softer than I expected. It slides up my arm until our palms are pressed together and our fingers intertwine. _

* * *

Ashley thought the man knocking on the doorframe was Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko but she wasn’t entirely sure. He made more of an impression than the lieutenant had in the media she’d gone through but, then again, he wasn’t standing behind John Shepard, Alliance Lieutenant Commander and First Human Spectre. 

“Do you mind if I come in?” he asked.

She shook her head. “You’re Lieutenant Alenko right?”

“Kaidan,” he said, sitting in a chair pulled up to the bed.

“Sir?”

“We were friends on the Normandy.” Alenko shifted his weight and rubbed his neck. He was kind of cute, in an awkward sort of way. “Good friends. You could call me by my first name if you wanted.”

“I don’t remember you,” she answered, her voice a little sharper than necessary. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I . . . uh, heard. From Shepard.”

It struck Ashley as odd how casually he said the name. Like the man was a friend not a historical figure. Had she ever said his name like that? It seemed she had said Alenko’s that way.

The lieutenant, oblivious to her wonderings, continued. “He’s been trying to get you clearance for the full reports but . . . well, he can handle a raging krogan better than he can red tape.” He started to laugh but stopped as soon as he noticed her lips were pursed. She wasn’t sure if she should too or not. “Anyway. I thought . . . I might be able to help. I’ve got some leave coming up and I’d like to stop by and visit. If it’s okay.”

“There are regs, sir.”

Her answer seemed to trip him up. Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised since he was friends with the commander and used to her calling him by his first name.

“Of course. Chief. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m sorry.” He stood and saluted her though he didn’t actually need to. “I should . . . go . . .”

The phrase made her chuckle, though she wasn’t sure why. She also wasn’t sure why she called him back before he reached the door.

“Alenko, wait. It might help. And I’d really like to remember.”


	4. Chapter 4

_Ashley smells like gun lubricant and the cinders of ablative armor plates but also some kind of fruit. I couldn’t place it on the Normandy. Too subtle to be strawberry. Not bright enough to be orange. Now that we are naked, tangled together in the sheets of a king-sized hotel bed, I recognize it as pomegranate._

_She sighs as she rolls over, tucking herself against my side. I’ve heard people say their lovers are beautiful when they sleep, peaceful and relaxed in a way they never are when they're awake. It’s true, she does look different but I kind of miss her bull-headed determination._

_Her eyes flutter then open. They are warm and deep and I’m sure there’s nothing in the whole of the galaxy that could make me happier._

_Then she smiles and I am proven wrong._

* * *

Because the doctors wanted to do two outpatient follow-ups, Ashley was stuck on the Citadel for six weeks. On the bright side, the Alliance had been able to put her up in one of the handful of rooms they had been given by the Council. On the downside, they were small, sparsely furnished, and barely a step up from the barracks.

The first day Alenko came to visit he brought a datapad full of picture files. She expected posed crew photos or shots from official ceremonies and presentations but all of them were candids.

Strangers with their arms around her. Friends she didn’t recognize.

“Tali took most of them,” he explained.

“That’s the . . . quarian?”

Alenko nodded. “Tali’Zorah nar Rayya. You liked her.” 

“Did I?” she asked, voice flat.

“Yeah.”

Alenko had noticed the tone she thought. The change was subtle but somehow he was even more gentle than before when he reached for the datapad and swiped through until he found what he was looking for. A picture of her at a mess table with a quarian wearing a purple hood. There was a coolant canister on the table between them and Ashley had her omni-tool out.

“You said she reminded you of Sarah.”

Ashley shoved the datapad back at him and surged out of her chair. Alenko stood too, slower, but she put a hand up to stop him.

“I’m just getting a drink,” she snapped.

The place was so small it was only three steps to the cabinet with the cups and a bit of a lean to reach the sink. She wrenched the tap when she turned it on and the water made an audible gushing noise as it poured out of the faucet. Ashley stopped and let it run for a minute, lost in the memory it brought back.

Shepard opened the last valve and the water started running again. Her orders had been clear, she was supposed to keep Tali behind her. “She’s a tech specialist, not a soldier.” Tali had argued, pulled the shotgun of her back. Ashley nodded and opened her pack to sort through her weapon and ammo mods, picked what she thought would be most useful. “I’m not a shotgun expert. You should talk to Wrex when we get back to the ship.” She had kept an eye on her through the fight but Tali held her own better than Ashley had thought she would.

Just like Sarah.


	5. Chapter 5

_There is a hole in my gut, an improvised nuke at my back, and an enemy army surrounding me but all I can think about is the woman on the other side of the facility._

_I know Shepard’s making the right choice. The objective is to blow the lab and everything inside it into oblivion and for that to happen we have to hold this bomb at all costs. But how am I supposed to be objective when the cost is Ashley’s life?_

_An unwelcome voice in the back of my head says this is why there are regs._

_Then the voice I most want to hear in the world asks, “You there, Kaidan?”_

_“I’m here, Ash.”_

_“I meant what I said, Kaidan.” Her words are clipped and hard. Someone else might mistake it for anger but I know better. It’s because she wants me to listen, to really hear what she’s saying. “I don’t regret a thing. Not you. Not us.”_

_“Ashley . . . ”_

_“Especially us.”_

* * *

Alenko had a bag of take-out this time.

“We’ve got to eat,” he said when she raised her eyebrows at the food. “And I thought . . . well, you’ll see.”

“You’ll see” apparently referred to the wide variety of alien cuisine he brought. There were containers from four different places in the bag and none of them were human. He explained each of them, a traditional salarian dish, a stew that Dr. T’Soni - “Liara” - recommended, a sampling of turian-inspired but levo-compatible desserts.

“This one was drell originally,” he explained, passing her a container. It was filled with what looked like three different kinds of noodles, covered with a bright yellow sauce. “But adapted by a Chinese couple here in the wards. We used to go there whenever Normandy was docked. They’d start it as soon as they saw us come in. Oh!”

He rummaged through the bag again and retrieved two pairs of chopsticks. She took the ones he offered her but didn’t take them out of their paper sleeve.

“I don’t know how to use these,” she said.

“Here . . . ” He already had his in hand but he put one down to demonstrate with the other. “Use your thumb to brace this one against your ring finger.”

She did as he showed her but as soon as she had the first one in position her hand fell into place around the other. With a practiced ease, she picked up a noodle from the carton. The taste and smell of it brought back a memory.

She was in a booth in a dimly lit restaurant. Alenko was sitting next her; Shepard and Dr. T'Soni were across the table. Everyone, including Shepard, laughed as he tried to pick up a piece of meat only for it to repeatedly slip back onto his plate. Liara asked the server for a fork for him. Ashley was having trouble herself, but then Alenko reached over and adjusted the position of her fingers and thumb. She smiled and picked up a noodle.


	6. Chapter 6

_ The cargo bay is empty when the elevator doors finally open. Even Silverman, the requisitions officer, has mysteriously disappeared.  _

_ I want to be irritated but I’m grateful.  _

_ My plan is to start with her locker but when I’m kneeling in front of it I can’t bring myself to touch the door. I stand, pace the length of the bay twice, and still can’t do it, so I switch my focus to the weapon bench. As an official workstation it is stocked with Alliance issue tools and equipment, but Ashley kept her own personal kit there as well. I pull it out from the shelf underneath but it isn’t latched and I dump the whole thing in the process. _

_ It doesn’t take me that long to gather everything up, mostly tools and mods but there’s an object I don’t recognize. It looks like a bottle cap, about two centimeters tall, five in diameter, with recessed switch on the side. My curiosity gets the better of me and flip it. _

_ “ . . . many voices. Come, my friends, ‘tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding . . . ” _

_ I’m not too proud to admit I lose it at the sound of her voice. I scream. I cry. I punch the table and my biotics are the only thing that keeps me from breaking every bone in my hand. _

_ As it is I leave an indentation in the metal. _

* * *

Docking bay D18 held absolutely no familiarity to Ashley but Alenko said it wasn’t the one they’d used before any way. Commander Shepard himself was waiting, leaning nonchalantly against a railing. The men shook hands, then the commander pulled him into a hug.

“Thanks for this, Shepard,” the lieutenant said. “I really appreciate it.”

“Least I could do,” he answered. “I’m still working on the reports but the Alliance says since it’s a Spectre mission it’s the Council’s call and the Council says that they won’t even consider the case until she’s gotten preapproval from the Alliance.”

“Bureaucracy at its finest,” Alenko said, with a touch of irritated amusement. 

Shepard snorted his agreement then turned his attention to Ashley. His eyes were bluer than in the pictures. She started to salute but stopped when he offered her his hand.

“Good to see you . . . ” He trailed off and she realized with some surprise that he was trying to figure out what to call her. He finally decided on, “Williams.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He shook his head but didn’t say anything else. Instead he went to the docking control panel and started inputting commands.

“I got you an hour,” he said, mostly to Alenko. “Technically I’m supposed to be with you the whole time but, well, I trust you. Just remember, if you break it I have fill out the paperwork.” He glanced at the other man, eyes twinkling. “And you know what that does to my mood.”

“Yeah, I do,” Alenko said with a small laugh. 

Shepard pressed his palm into the panel’s scanner and the door to the decontamination chamber opened. Alenko ushered her in.

“Welcome aboard the Normandy, Chief.” 

Ashley stepped into the hall and glanced around. She was supposed to go right, toward the bridge and the main part of the ship, but she turned left instead and headed to the cockpit. She stopped behind the pilot’s chair and glanced up at the windows. They were covered now but she had been standing there the first time she had seen the Citadel. 

“Taxpayer dollars at work,” she thought, though the voice in her head wasn’t hers. And then, in another voice, “The Destiny Ascension, flagship of the Citadel fleet.” For some reason the second voice made her stomach flutter. 

It turned a full flip when Alenko said, “Williams?”

“ . . . Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I was just . . . ” She shook her head. “Where to next?”

“I thought you’d want to see your work station. It’s . . . ”

Ashley was already past him and headed. Her feet remembered where she was going even if her mind didn’t. 


	7. Chapter 7

_ “How long have you known?” _

_ Shepard checks his omni. “Two hours and seven minutes. I would have gotten here sooner but I had to take a call from the Council.” _

_ “You’re sure?” _

_ “I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t sure. She’s alive. She’s okay. And she’s here.” _

_ The room starts spinning and I worry for a minute that I might pass out. Maybe I do, or start to. The next thing I know I’m in a chair and Shepard is offering me a glass of water. I take it but don’t drink because I get my first good look at him. _

_ “What? What aren’t you telling me?” _

_ Shepard runs his hand through his buzz-cut and gives a deep sigh before he says, “She doesn’t remember, Kaidan. She doesn’t remember Eden Prime, or anything after. She doesn’t remember the Reapers or the Normandy. She doesn’t remember you.” _

_ “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I remember. I remember enough for the both of us.” _

* * *

There was a dent on the edge of her table. She recognized it as the imprint of a fist; someone had punched it hard enough to leave a two inch depression in the metal. It wouldn’t have been easy to do. Whoever had done it probably walked away with a shattered hand. What actually made her pause though was that it hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen it.

She remembered the table and the dent wasn’t supposed to be there.

She walked over to the table and stood in front of it. The weapons had been removed obviously but after disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling so many weapons she didn’t need the actual object to do it. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the rifle, until she could feel it in her hands. But the shape was wrong. It wasn’t Alliance standard issue. It was a turian model with a scram rail and frictionless materials kit.

Vakarian had called her over after they’d cleared out the last of the rachni. He was standing over a weapon crate. “It’s a good one. Very popular with those of us who want a little more than the Hierarchy will spring for.” It was better than his rifle, why didn’t he want it? Vakarian ran a claw over his sniper. “I prefer something with a little more range, personally.” The statement was true but he ended up in every other firefight anyway. “Thanks, Garrus.”

When she opened her eyes Kaidan was next her, just on the edge of being in or out of her personal space. His hand was resting near the dent and it caught her attention in way that made her pause. She didn’t think about it, which was probably why it happened at all, she simply picked up his hand, closed it into a fist, and nudged it into the impression.

It fit perfectly, down to the ridges of his knuckles. 

A small blue spark jumped from his skin to hers and she gasped as she jerked back, more surprise than anything else. It changed immediately as the images came flooding through her. The crinkles at the corner of Kaidan’s eyes when he really smiled. The scar on Kaidan’s side and the way he squirmed when she kissed it. The muscles in Kaidan’s shoulders, and back, and . . . well, a little lower. The exact timbre of his laugh when she told him he had a great ass and the golden warmth that started in her belly at the sound.

She looked up at him and said, “Kaidan.” 


End file.
